Two years ago, members of the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region (WMR), including local mayors Myron Dyck and Chris Ewen, initiated some important first steps toward reconciliation and collaboration with the indigenous leaders of southeast Manitoba. They called it the Collaborative Leadership Initiative.
The WMR has long operated as a collective of reeves and mayors from 18 municipalities in and around Winnipeg. Their goal is to work together, providing strength in numbers, to create large-scale solutions for the entire region.
In October 2017, the leaders of the WMR began a formal process of transforming their relationship with the indigenous chiefs within the region and seeking ways to work together for the greater good.
The WMR held four sessions, facilitated by the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources. Together they formed a think tank, addressing their shared social and economic concerns and discussing the complexities of protecting Manitoba’s land, water, and air.
“The elected leaders have committed to a pathway forward that includes clearly defining our common interests, identifying obstacles to progress and dispelling mutual myths with the fact-based dialogue of mutual respect,” reads a statement on the Collaborative Leadership Initiative’s website.
On March 1, 2019, 28 chiefs and 16 mayors and reeves signed a historic Intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding at the Lower Fort Garry National Historic Site, where Treaty 1 was originally signed on August 3, 1871.
“The WMR, right now, is the only [capital region] who is including the indigenous communities in our planning,” Dyck says. “They live among us and yet they’ve been excluded from so many [discussions] in terms of climate, water, septic and things like that.”
Because of this unique collaboration, award-winning international filmmakers Denis Paquette and Carmen Henriquez from RealWorld Media were provided a government grant to create a documentary capturing the journey of the building of trust and collective collaboration between these indigenous and non-indigenous leaders.
“[This documentary should] provide a glimpse into the reconciliation process that must take place across all jurisdictions if we want to have real trusting relationships between our communities,” reads a media advisory from the WMR.
The debut screening of the documentary will take place on October 10 at the Park Theatre.